Farage Has Said Some Things That Have Helped Me Clarify My Thoughts

Farage - back in the days when you could still get milkshake

Farage is different to a lot of the politicians on the right, and the Tories are right to fear him. I like listening to him and I have found that he often spots the key thing about a debate. He combines this with a rare species of integrity. He has been campaigning to get out of Europe for much longer than it has been profitable to do so. When he joined UKIP nobody would have thought it was the route to anything other than obscurity.

This marks him out from most Brexiters who typically peddle anything but clarity and who seem to be in it for personal gain more than anything else.

Here are three times Farage has said things that I’ve found clarified things helpfully.

Early on in the run up to the referendum he framed the question that got to the heart of the matter. Would we join the EU if we weren’t already in it? At that stage I didn’t know which way I was going to vote. It simply wasn’t something I’d thought about since the first referendum. But that was very much the right way to think about it. And when I did think about it that way it was obvious. If there is a Europe wide organisation then Britain has to be in it. We’re a large and important European country. How can we stay out?

“It’s all about fish.” The small size of the fishing industry doesn’t mean it should be ignored. You can’t expect something as far reaching as the EU to have no downsides for anyone anywhere, but it should be largely beneficial for most people most of the time. So it isn’t unreasonable to ask about how it affects particular groups. As it happens I come from a coastal town with close relatives who have worked in fishing. So I knew a bit about the subject. I did a bit of research and found out more. The conclusion I reached was that if anything the EU was good for UK fishing if anything.

Migration into the UK is a knotty issue and it is one that winds a lot of people up. It was obviously one that could be used to motivate people to take a side who might not otherwise be interested. You can see the appeal to a Europhobe. There was a problem though. Most migration comes from outside the EU, and nothing about being in the EU stopped us from controlling it. It was only a matter of time before Farage was confronted with this inconvenient fact. He had a reply ready. “If we’ve already got a problem with non-EU immigration we shouldn’t make it worse with EU immigration on top.”

It was pretty effective. The questioner had already accepted the framing that immigration is a problem so the response sounded logical and sensible. The question that didn’t get answered was why we needed to take back control of European immigration when we weren’t bothering to control the immigration we were already in control of. My conclusion was that whatever the motivation for Brexit was, it clearly wasn't what Farage was saying it was.

Farage's rhetoric was very effective at delivering Brexit. Given the narrowness of the vote I believe it was decisive. Thinking over some of the things he said has helped me understand the event better. The thing I haven't been able to work it, is what motivated him in the first place?